Much Ado About Nothing
by BlackLightning42
Summary: 'It' fanfiction. Totally weird, funny (to me, at least) story about It's offspring. More a parody than anything else, and technical ironies.


Disclaimer: This is a total rip-off and parody of Stephen King's novel 'It'. Great book ^_^ This twisted little snippet comes from my mind, but everyone knows that I don't own anything in here anyway (well, maybe the thingie at the end, but that is directly inspired by the book as well). In other words, nothing in here is mine, and I'm sure as hell not making a penny off it (only loosing sleep as I stare blearily at the keyboard). All credit goes the all-powerful, much-creepy Mr. Stephen King.

Note: I don't know a lot about spiders, and anything about the spider itself (Itself?) is either fact I've derived from the book, or my own speculation. Likewise, anything about eggs is more or less application of the facts of snake/lizard eggs – only taken to the extreme, and then exaggerated upon. (I know my lizards, I especially know my snakes – even breed them, however, I know next to nothing about spiders, beyond ID-ing breeds and male from female – sometimes) Oh, and this was all typed in the time of an hour, and it is completely and utterly unedited, but for a fast spell-check. It might be okay, it might be horrible, but it came out of my head unbidden and unexpected, so it just got down in a word doc in a hurry.

Much Ado About Nothing

It took years. Centuries, even. Perhaps even millennia. When something is so infinite, so eternal, a couple of thousand years don't mean all that much. And somewhere in that time, an egg matured. 

An egg that stood half buried in hard-packed earth, even in the stagnant and untouched cavern in which it resided. Once, this egg's surface had been soft, a pliable leather substance, but time had taken the moisture from its surface, had formed a hard carapace over it. It might have spoiled, it may have molded, so low was the survival rate of these creatures. Many eggs would die before one was able to make it through – when the creature residing within was so outrageously powerful, it was better that not many survived. To have even two or three of these being present at any time in the universe might well cause a great imbalance – in their favor. 

But this one had managed to beat the odds – had fallen at just the right angle, had not been jostled at any time, so that the embryo within was not disturbed. Had the egg moved at all after even a few moments of first being deposited, the settling nucleus of the creature within might well have drowned itself unwittingly? Had the air temperature varied either way by more than a few fractions of a degree it would have cooked, frozen. Had the moisture in it early years of existence become to great, it may have absorbed too much moisture through its shell and explode, or condensation would form on the top, subsequently drowning the creature within, or the air would be just thick enough with water that the outer cover of the egg simply covered the egg and choked out life entirely. If it had become to dry, the egg would have imploded. As it was, all moisture had remained just as it should to keep alive the growing creature until the surface of its shell had hardened, giving it shelter from the humidity levels, letting it incubate its later development in slightly greater safety. In the time that passed it had slowly sunk into the earth around it, had been grown over with moss and lichens that had come to thrive in the low cavern in the time since its mother had slept there. 

How this little egg had beaten the odds! Just a single one, out of so many, that had been left undiscovered. How this one had escaped death as its potential siblings fell. Of, they were alive when they left their eggs – but none were developed, none would have survived more than a few meters from their eggs. But this one, this single creature left to grow in the dark, had beaten all odds. This single one left behind was strong enough, in the right place, to survive. Where so many thousands of others might have died in this exact place, this one was just the right embryo for the spot, and was maturing nicely. 

And after so many years it was ready to emerge. Or, more precisely, It was ready to emerge. A few light pushes at its shell, breaking the egg easily from the inside, feeble against the power of what lied within. The eggshell cracked slowly, new muscles testing their bounds, ears which had lived in dead silence for all It's existence were finally touched by the sound of It's own movement, and the presence of sound, at long last, was joyous in itself. It paused a moment, to savor the moment, front legs brushed by air for all of the existence It had yet lived. Stagnant and foul as that air may be, it knew no other. 

But this moment passed quickly, for It was young, and impatient, and eager for newness that had been deprived of it so long. It pushed Itself quickly from the stale egg, teetering on fresh legs for a few moments before properly arraying them around Itself, on instinct, and pausing to collect Itself. Instinct. Instinct It had – very much of it. It knew that it was young, that it was vulnerable, and that it would be for some time. Until Its carapace took on a harsh and air-dried armor quality. Until It could feed and grow bigger. Until, most importantly, it could reach out into the Deadlights, It's destined home. Instinct told It how to reach for the deadlights, how to drift into the reality in which they consumed all matter and all thought, and how to be comfortable and safe in their embrace. It could almost reach them now, from where It stood poised on the time-packed soil, letting It's shell dry and harden. They were dancing just out of the grasp of It's mind, It was yet too weak to slip into existence there, and too young. Until It matured, it would be vulnerable, trapped on a single plane, where all was physical, and the mind had no hold of reality. A dangerous place. Before it could slip into hiding within the deadlights, it would need to feed, to grow stronger. It's mind could only do so much for it with the small amount of energy It had. But that was okay – It needed only a few meals to gain the strength It require for It's first sleep in the deadlights, and it could grow there, float freely in that realm while It's meal digested properly, while instinct filled in the blanks missing in It's knowledge. 

And instinct... Instinct told It that it needed to leave this cavern to find prey, told It how to navigate this place, even in the dead dark, told It that it had to go up – up to the surface world, see what It could find there, find something to eat. 

And catching prey would be easy; It knew It's own power, that, though still weak for It's species, it was vastly powerful. It could feel the potent venom that It had been born with, waiting to flow from It's hair-triggered fangs, and new how to use it. But it would need somewhere to store It's catch once it was secured. 

And this, along with the newly forming armor covering It's body, sent it scurrying on ungainly child leg out from It's tunnel, and away from It's egg. It's speeding yet comfortable run led it with ease out into a large cavern, and It marveled at It's own strength in a passing thought. But it was not yet the time to wonder at such things, and it found itself quickly at the edge of the cavern, examining the ghosts of the web a larger of It's kind had once made. The venomous silk had long since dispersed, of course, but it's shadow remained, and it was enough to guide the young creature to begin building It's own, relatively smaller web in the space long ago occupied by another – It's parent?

But this creature, in attaching It's first fine thread of silk against the floor, did not realize until far too late that it was breathing It's last. 

In a movement much to fast for the child-thing to register, crushing jaws had closed over It's young body, cracked It's new carapace with loud crunch. In shock, it could only realize that it was the loudest sound destined to meet It's ears in It's now-doomed life. 

And then the pain filtered through, screaming at it from It's inexperienced limbs, abdomen. Screaming from the deadlights, which It knew now that It would never reach. 

But it was released, then. The clamp that had been over it suddenly releasing and dropping It into a forming pool of It's own fluids on the floor. Dropping from razor teeth that could easily be longer than the width of It's body, each. But It was not given time to think, soon it was compressed sharply, and It was pushed into the flattened earth by what mush have been the muzzle of the giant beast which had managed to come up behind it. Pushed tighter and harder, until It could feel It's internal organs shifting to the holes that had been so neatly punctured in It's armor. It's legs scrabbled uselessly against the ground, looking for purchase and knowing It would find none, only panic dulling the inevitability of the situation. 

Then it was grabbed by the monstrous jaws again, this time only a protruding piece of It's brittle carapace, and it was lifter from the ground by this. It tried desperately to reach It's assailant with It's fangs, but knew this would be futile as well. 

In a movement that It would have associated with a dog worrying a bone, had it ever lived to know what a 'dog' or a 'bone' was, it was shaken violently from side to side by the Greater beast. It could feel the tearing of It's flesh, the ripping and the sharp pain that accompanied this, and It's terror knew naught of what It faced, would not live long enough to learn. 

Just as It felt that a chunk of It's flesh might actually tear away if the violent movement continued, the jaws within which It was trapped snapped upwards sharply, before opening. It was flung into the air for what seemed an eternity much longer than all It's time in the egg, and for a moment, it could look down, with It's many eyes, to that with had captured It, would soon consume it. What it saw served only to refresh It's terror, the snout of some beast it could not describe, a creature of nightmares, to some. Wide jaws waiting for It's return, a row of razor serrated teeth lining them. A forked tong which poked ominously just over it's bottom row of teeth, just enough exposed to flick lightly up and down, enough to anticipate it's meal. Scales lined the outside of this Hellish, gaping mouth, covered the face, the neck and body. Rippling chain-mail scales that extended all the way down it's legs to where vicious claws rested, half dug-in the otherwise solid earth, in their sharpness. But that was not the worst – not by far the worst.

The beast's eyes, which regarded It in such a calm, predatory manner. The eyes were so much worse, brilliant, shining bright blue, at first. Bright blue all around the edges, and the first thing noticed for the glimmer of light radiating out, but the eyes did not stop there. From the sparkling outer rim It had to look into the middle, so deep that it was difficult to conceive. Too deep for It to understand, the true depth of those eyes, eyes that needed to be looked at over time, to let be drawn from the blue to darker to darker, to the black in the center which went on forever. Forever into the darkness, which stretched far beyond the depth of the animal's head, or the tip of its tail, for that matter. The eyes were not of the creature hunting, they were of something more. So much more – so powerful that even the deadlights could not compare.

Out of the blue and into the black.

Terror was the last thing It knew as it fell into the jaws of the beast, never to hunt, to spin It's web, to fade into the deadlights – float in the deadlight. And then It was no more. 

With a satisfied hissing cough, the lizard swallowed a few extra times, bobbing it's head in aid of this, before settling it's head back down to normal stalking stance, and it licked over it's lips with it's long forked tongue, pulling in the remaining blood and juices from it's meal. 

Hunger satiated, it turned in a graceful arc and weaved it's way smoothly back to it's tunnel, climbing down the inconspicuous dark tunnel far deeper that the other creature could ever hope to imagine. 

And when it reached the bottom, it would curl into a tight ball in its burrow, warmed by the earth's warm core radiating heat up toward its body. And there it would sleep, and dream dreams of blue mist in black emptiness, for another twenty-seven hundred years, until the need for food drove it to the surface again. 

~end~

I suppose it's my duty now to explain to you that this is more or less an application of how Murdock (my surprisingly good-tempered monitor) eats a cricket. It can occasionally get quite gruesome. Of course, Murdock is only a pint-sized killer, and he usually never sleep for more than two hours at a time. 


End file.
